This article wins this minutes stupid prize: “Paying smokers to quit boosts success rate.”

Really? No shit! You’re telling me that people will do stuff if you give them money? How f***ing brilliant is that?! Way to go, Pavlov.

“GE’s chief medical officer, Dr. Robert Galvin, said Wednesday that starting next January, the company will offer a quitting incentive program covering its 152,000 U.S. employees, at more than 250 sites. GE expects to recoup the costs of the smoking cessation program in three to five years.”

What’s next, they’ll start offering money to people who stop smoking crack, or who quit beating their kids, or hey, here’s a thought, let’s give money to people in exchange for goods and services. What would you call that, anyways?

I wonder if this is covered in the stimulus bill….it seems fitting that it would be. I understand the idea: companies pay less in the long run because their workers will be healthier. I get it. It’s a numbers game. But I have a great big heaping problem accepting that people who have picked up the disgusting habit and actually need to be enticed into quitting with money deserve a single cent. They have a choice in the matter. I’m for supporting programs like AA style group counselling – to a reasonable extent – but to actually take money and put it in the hands of smokers? My “isn’t this stupid meter” just hit the red “very goddamn stupid” zone. uggggh.

Hey government, it’s not exactly healthy for me to live on oatmeal and ramen and stuff that comes out of a can, and unlike those poor smokers, I don’t have a choice in the matter. One could say I’m very much forced into this lifestyle. So howsabout some cash so I can buy healthy groceries every week?

I’m sorry if you’re addicted to cigarettes and have problems quitting. I know plenty of people who are in that very position, however, not a single one of them believes they are entitled to money because they are addicted to smoking and have problems stopping. Like so many other things, this is about the principle of responsibility. I’m forced to wonder what my future children will think. How can we teach responsible behavior when people are getting paid money to be irresponsible?

Oh, there are so many “echo”s to this line of reason….

Well, I was spurned by the 10 invites to the “end the aggression against Gaza” group”. I’m definately going to lose friends over posting this on facebook:

Maybe a ground invasion of Gaza needs to happen.

I know I’m going to be accused of being a peace-hating, cold-hearted republican again. I am not a republican, and I do not love wars. This sentiment has spent about a week in the cooker, and has ripened from mild annoyance to full-fledged, uh, well, annoyance. Annoyance at the first suggestions that Israel shouldn’t have responded with airstrikes after Hamas launched rockets over the borders, annoyance at the UN, and annoyance at the stupid hippies with signs who probably don’t know the first thing about Hamas. Yes, Israel has a tendency to overreact, but to suggest that a counter attack was unwarranted is just about one of the stupidest things I’ve heard on CNN. I forget his name, but his line of reason was that no one was killed by any of the 70 rockets launched by Hamas and thus the intensity of the Israeli response was unwarrented.

Hel-lo?! That doesn’t make it ok, and that doesn’t mean that Israel shouldn’t have responded with airstrikes to remove the threat. It’s not as though Hamas used nice, cuddly, fluffy little rockets; the fact that no one was killed by their attacks was an accident.

As for a cease-fire as the UN suggested? Impossible, sadly so. For the first time in recent memory, I actually agree with something Barack Obama has said: that Israel agreeing to a cease-fire with Hamas would be like us agreeing to a cease-fire with Al-Qaeda. Bravo, Barry, for the intelligent statement.

Unfortunately, Palestinians elected Hamas to be the governing party, and Hamas has repeatedly vowed to destroy the state of Israel. In fact, I don’t know if it is even proper to use such a phrase, because Hamas won’t acknowledge the existence of the state of Israel.

From http://www.cfr.org/publication/8968/

“Hamas combines Palestinian nationalism with Islamic fundamentalism. Its founding charter commits the group to the destruction of Israel, the replacement of the PA with an Islamist state on the West Bank and Gaza, and to raising “the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” Its leaders have called suicide attacks the “F-16″ of the Palestinian people. Hamas believes “peace talks will do no good,” Rantisi said in April 2004. “We do not believe we can live with the enemy.”"

I’m not heralding the ground invasion of Gaza. It sucks, really. War sucks, violence sucks, it’s all very, very negative, and it makes me a saaaaaaad panda. But what are the options? How can Israel hold peace talks with a governing party that doesn’t acknowledge that Israel has a right to exist? Should they try a cease-fire as suggested by U.N. ? I’m sure they will eventually, but I’m also sure that they will fail. Israel does have a right to defend to defend itself. This isn’t me merely echoing Bush’s recent statement, this is the fact of the matter. Most nations prioritize protecting their people. Israel has a right to do this, as does Palestine. But Hamas must stop training suicide bombers and sending them into Israel, and they really need stop vowing the Israel’s destruction. Seriously.

I  honestly do pledge my support to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. But Hamas needs to go, or revamp its foundations and charter. If there is anything left of Palestine after these terrible times, then I hope that Palestinians will rise up and kick Hamas to the curb and elect a governing party that doesn’t swear the total destruction of its neighbor, because that shit is violent and totally not cool, umkay? But, this will probably be unlikely to occur (see post-WWI Germany).